NGOs Flashcards
Callaghy (2013)
In conjunction with elements of an epistemic community, the NGO translocal networks have shaped the amplitude and sway of the international debt regime in important ways.
The three “genetic” strands of the triple helix – the institutions of the international debt regime, the NGO debt networks, and the epistemic community – has powerfully affected the way a number of African and other states function; it has intervened in the day-to-day operation of these states in very detailed ways. In their interaction with the international debt regime, the epistemic and NGO strands of the triple helix have helped to create new forms of governance at both the national and international levels.
The international debt regime strand of the triple helix can be characterized as an international arena. With its widely amplified norms and discourses, it constitutes an international public sphere made up primarily of states and international financial institutions.
Not all creditor countries resisted more debt relief, and some of those that did, did not do it all the time; sometimes they changed their minds. Over time the two major Bretton Woods institutions had quite varied views and played quite different roles in regard to debt issues. Not all NGOs supported HIPC I and HIPC II; many have refused to support them because of the very tight link to the often harsh and intrusive conditionalities of structural adjustment. Another lesson is that the NGOs with the best understanding of the international debt regime and the economics epistemic community were able to bring about the most change.
Smythe (2003)
The dynamics of global economic governance at the WTO are changing. The changing membership and the role of NGOs are raising challenges to the way in which, and in whose interests, the WTO operates:
1. The compromise that created the Working Group on Trade and Investment (WGTI) reflected the lack of consensus on negotiating investment rules at the WTO in 1996 and the ongoing efforts led by the United States to forge an investment agreement first at the OECD
2. opponents of investment rules were able, for a period, to stymie any progress toward a decision on negotiations in the working group. Ultimately, however, proponents could overcome enough opposition to at least insert a deadline for a future decision on investment and other Singapore issue negotiations into the Doha Declaration
3. WTO capacity-building program for DCs was a final key to overcome DCs reluctance for engaging in new negotiations
4. NGOs played a role in alternative capacity building and the articulating of ideas and knowledge about investment issues, which was intended to counter the claims of proponents about the link between multilateral investment rules and development and to strengthen developing-country opposition to negotiations
the growing challenge for proponents to make a convincing case for negotiations by linking development and multilateral investment rules in the WGTI and the increasing atmosphere of acrimony and frustration that reinforced develop ing-country opposition
Kapstein & Busby (2010)
Why were AIDS activists successful in putting universal access to treatment on the international agenda when so many other global campaigns have either failed or struggled to have much impact?
Analyse:
(1) permissive material conditions;
(2) convergence on a policy prescription;
(3) attributes of the activists; and
(4) the broad political support for their cause.
Argument:
The market for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs was politically constructed; activists had to bring the demand and supply sides of the market together through a variety of tactics and strategies. The idea that motivated the activists was that ARVs should ideally be ‘merit goods’, goods that are available to everyone regardless of income. But, when ARVs first came on the market, poor people in the developing world lacked the resources to buy them. Activists successfully lobbied donor nations to use foreign aid to buy ARVs, and they pressured pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices, while encouraging generic firms to enter the market. However, even where a policy enjoys favorable material conditions – i.e. low costs, large benefits, demonstrated feasibility – this may not be enough. A clear prescription, credible messengers and resonant arguments may be necessary for an issue to receive adequate political support
